The man who leads our drama department has written the drama’s for the series we are in called “Letters From The Cross”. This weeks drama is of a man sharing for the first time with his wife that he was beaten and brutalized by his father. As we were talking about it he confessed that it was easy to write because he had lived it. That inspired me to share some of the things that I remember from my own childhood that have to do with my dad and his treating of me and my siblings and mother. “Father Issues” is what we call them. They play such an important role in our lives and in particular in the way we see God. They fog the picture of the true father heart of God and his character and love for us. Today in our Life Journal in 2 Thess. 2 Paul is reminding the receivers of the letter how they had treated them as fathers treat their children. His great concern for them. I wonder if they had father issues and couldn’t see it.
The key piece of my Christian journey that has allowed me to move on with my own father issues have to deal primarily with the acceptance of my father as a sinner. Someone put it this way, “We are sinners raising sinners”. My dad had father issues too. Wonderfully I had a moment when I was able to go to my dad and forgive him and ask him for forgiveness. It changed my life and changed his too. God used it to transform my dad into someone who until his death wanted to make sure his children knew he loved them. I am following his example.
“As A Father”
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#1 by David Bier at June 9th, 2010
For so very long I was lost in the process of asking why I am the way that I was? Like all of us I had a story to tell and in some degree I was a product of the past. Always holding onto the pain of the father wound and although saved and in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ I could not break the wounds that still controlled me. I wanted the heart of sonship yet I had the heart of an Orphan. In Malichi 4:6 there is a promise of Revival and by choosing to forgive my dad of his being absent and walking away and by Choosing to believe in Gods Justice and not my own my heart began to heal. With the help of the Holy Spirit and through His words in Scripture I began to couragelusly seek reconciliation and to clean up the conflicts of the past. I found out that all the things that I missed as a son I now had the blessing to find as a father. In fact I had been blessed beyond measure As a wounded son I sought and was willing to risk it all for a fathers blessing. I was given an opportuntiy to get it right and to not repeat my family history. Through my realtionship with Jesus Christ I found Affection, Admiration and re-affirmation that I did not have in the teenage years from my earthly father, and now I rest in the Fathers presence and love.